USA TODAY Sports is counting down the top 24 candidates on the 2018 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot in advance of the Jan. 24 election results. The countdown is based on voting by our power rankings panel, which includes five Hall voters.

No. 21: Johnny Damon

Damon's brushes with fame in an 18-year career were significant: He was the symbolic face - and highly productive catalyst - for the first Boston Red Sox team in 86 years to win a title, and the most recent New York Yankees team to do so.

Responsible for branding those 2004 Red Sox as a bunch of "idiots," Damon drew criticism for joining the Yankees after 2005, particularly in the wake of his vow that "there's no way I can go play for the Yankees, but I know they're going to come after me hard. It's definitely not the most important thing to go out there for the top dollar, which the Yankees are going to offer me. It's not what I need."

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The Yankees indeed gave him a four-year, $52 million deal and he made it pay off in 2009, when he hit 24 homers and posted an .854 OPS for the World Series-winning 2009 Yankees.

During his 18-year career, he was a two-time All-Star who finished with a .284 lifetime batting average.

A leadoff hitter for most of his career, Damon began his career with the Kansas City Royals and also spent time with the Oakland Athletics, Detroit Tigers, Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Indians.

The case for: Two-hundred and thirty one more hits and Damon would have been a shoo-in for the Hall - he'd have 3,000 hits. Among left-handed hitters, he ranks 27th with 2,769 hits. He has more career hits than Chipper Jones, 12 less than Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr., and 164 more than Hall of Famer Tim Raines.

He was a dependable leadoff hitter who reached base 3,822 times, ranking 64th all-time, and from 1996-2011 played an average of 149 games per year. He stole 408 bases, ranking 67th, with a respectable 80% success rate.

On June 27, 2003, Damon became only the second player since 1900 to record three base hits in an inning.

The case against: Damon's compilation of statistics are impressive, but lack a dominant, defining trait. Lacking a strong throwing arm, he never won a Gold Glove in the outfield and was selected to the All-Star Game only twice. Possibly the biggest omission from his resume: No top 10 finishes in MVP voting.

His career OPS-plus of 104 pales in comparison even to similarly questionable candidates on the current ballot, such as Jeff Kent (123), Scott Rolen (122) and Hideki Matsui (118).

X-factors: Damon was known to be a great teammate and clubhouse guy. He did not shirk from the spotlight in the game's most hyper-intense markets, shining on the October stage for the Red Sox and Yankees. In 59 postseason games, he hit .276 and slugged 10 homers with 33 RBI, while stealing 13 out of 14 bases. He effectively put the Yankees out of their misery in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, singling to lead off the game, hitting a grand slam an inning later and a second home run in the fourth as the Red Sox completed an unprecedented comeback from a 3-0 series deficit to reach the World Series.

Consensus: Despite a colorful and memorable career, Damon doesn’t possess the necessary credentials to enter Cooperstown. Still, he deserves a longer look than the likely one-and-done treatment he'll receive this year, and should make a compelling case eventually for the Modern Era committee.